Brother MFC-J5340DW review

House workplace A4 all-in-one printers are the most typical kind you’ll discover on the market, however what do you do whenever you want one thing that may print on A3 paper as properly? 

The Brother MFC-J5340DW is the entry-level mannequin of Brother’s MFC-J5 vary of A4/A3 color inkjet all-in-ones for 2022, and simply may be the one you’re after.

It’s the follow-up to the MFC-J55330W that we reviewed again in 2017.

Moreover A4 and A3 printing, the MFC-J5340DW is a house workplace multitasker, providing lots of the options you’d anticipate to see on an all-in-one inkjet – there’s an scanner and copier, auto duplexing (computerized double-sided printing), and an ADF (computerized doc feeder). 

A color touchscreen management panel means it’s straightforward to function and run out of your desk, and in case you’re away, you’ll be able to remotely queue print jobs out of your telephone through the Brother Cellular apps. 

There’s built-in Wi-Fi and Apple AirPrint compatibility, so Mac, iPhone and iPad homeowners can get arrange with comparatively little fuss. For individuals who choose a dependable wired community connection, there’s additionally an Ethernet port. A USB 2.0 port sits on the entrance of the MFC-J5340DW, so that you’ve received the choice to print straight from flash drives.

Design & Construct

• Cumbersome and heavy at 17kg
• 250-sheet single paper tray
• 50-sheet computerized doc feeder

The Brother MFC-J5340DW seems to be like a mini model of your typical workplace photocopier. That’s to say it’s pretty boxy, but in addition utilitarian-looking with its no-nonsense straight strains and curved corners. The one factor that’s lacking is just a little tray for paper clips. 

It’s straightforward to determine the place a lot of the key options and features are. The Sort-A USB port, paper tray, and the deal with for the ink cartridge cradle are all clearly marked out on the entrance, and it’s straightforward to see the place you’ll want to grip and raise the scanner cowl on the perimeters. 

What’s much less apparent is the place the Ethernet and Sort-B USB ports are – that’s as a result of they’re hidden beneath the scanner mattress. 

Raise this up and also you’ll see that the networking ports have been tucked away inside, with a cable gutter, which terminates on the prime proper nook of the scanner mattress. This may affect the place you set this up in your house workplace, and/or drive you to spend money on some longer cables.  

It’s a good contact, although, because it means these cables don’t stick out of the again, requiring much more depth in your desk, and likewise protects the connectors.

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The copier and scanner beds are just a little on the heavy facet, however slow-close arms imply that they’re straightforward to function. And talking of heavy, the MFC-J5340DW itself weights a not inconsiderable 17kg. 

That’s fairly cumbersome, however contemplating all the inner parts and the massive 250-sheet paper tray, crammed right into a 305 x 530 x 398mm cuboid, it’s maybe not shocking that it weighs greater than your typical all-in-one, such because the Epson EcoTank ET-3850 and the HP Envy Encourage 7220e, each of which weigh lower than 7kg.

Having mentioned that, the DCP-L3510cdw weighs an excellent heftier 21kg, so this isn’t the heaviest printer Brother’s ever launched. 

It’s value stating that the scanner is A4 measurement, not A3. There may be an computerized doc feeder, which holds as much as 50 sheets of A4 and permits fast scanning (and copying) of lengthy paperwork.

Across the again there’s a manual-feed slot which helps you to insert single sheets, corresponding to an envelope or different ‘particular media’ you wish to print on sometimes with out eradicating all of the paper from the principle tray first.

The paper tray itself can maintain as much as 250 sheets of A4 or A3. It’s not designed to have the ability to maintain two completely different paper sizes on the identical time, and in case you load A3 paper, you’ll have to take away the tray and prolong it. This makes it poke an additional 20cm (8in) out from the physique of the printer. That’s not the top of the world, however one thing to think about if desk area is an element. 

Should you want to have the ability to shortly change between printing on A4 and A3 paper, then the bigger (and, at round £400, costlier) MFC-J5955DW may be higher suited to you, as this options two trays.

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Setup, apps & wi-fi printing

• 2.6in touchscreen management panel is straightforward to make use of and navigate
• Clip-in ink cartridges are straightforward to put in
• Brother Cellular apps allow you to print recordsdata saved domestically or from the cloud

Establishing and working the MFC-J5340DW is made straightforward because of the presence of a touchscreen management panel, and an intelligently laid out consumer interface. 

The interface could be very straightforward to navigate – whichever of the three dwelling screens you’re on, shortcuts to the Wi-Fi menu, ink ranges, and normal settings menu will all the time be pinned to the underside of the display screen. You may even create your personal shortcuts, and must you ever get misplaced, there are Again, House, and Cancel delicate keys inbuilt. 

The setup course of takes about ten minutes, and at first sees you eradicating the ink container panel, clipping within the cartridges, and dropping in a single sheet of A4 in panorama within the guide feed slot.

As soon as the nozzle and print alignment exams are accomplished, you then place the printout on the scanner glass, and the MFC-J5340DW will run a fast check to verify the scanner’s working accurately. After that, you’re then free to attach the printer to your property community. 

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Even in case you’re connecting the MFC-J5340DW to your router through Ethernet, you’ll nonetheless in all probability wish to connect with your property community through Wi-Fi as properly, to permit for printing through the Brother Cellular apps. This can be a easy case of discovering your property community’s SSID from the listing and getting into your password.

You’ll then be prompted to enter the default admin password of the MFC-J5340DW, which you will discover printed on the again – you’ll be requested to vary this as quickly as potential. This can be a good factor, because it makes your printer inherently safer, particularly in case you decide a pleasant, sturdy password. With that out of the way in which, the MFC-J5340DW is then able to obtain printing directions out of your units. 

Because the printer helps Apple AirPrint, any MacOS units robotically recognise the MFC-J5340DW when utilizing the identical Wi-Fi community – head to System Preferences > Printers & Scanners, and it ought to be there. Home windows customers can obtain the drivers from Brother’s web site.

You may as well join on to the MFC-J5340DW with a Sort A to Sort B USB cable. 

Likewise, the Brother Cellular (iOS, Android) apps ought to immediately connect with the MFC-J5340DW in the event that they’re on the identical Wi-Fi community, if not, you’ll be able to simply seek for and add units from throughout the app. 

The apps allow you to print paperwork and pictures saved domestically in your telephone or from cloud-based drives utilizing the ‘Doc Print’ and ‘Picture Print’ instruments. Supported cloud storage choices embody Field, Dropbox, Evernote, in addition to Microsoft OneNote and OneDrive, and Google Drive. 

Out of your telephone you may as well verify ink ranges and order extra cartridges if you’ll want to, run upkeep cycles.

Thomas Newton / Foundry

Efficiency

• Quick printing – A4 at round 28ppm, A3 at round 24ppm
• < 1 min for images on shiny 10x15cm (4x6in) paper
• Scans plain textual content on A4 at 300dpi in beneath 5 seconds 
• Satisfactory prints at Regular high quality setting

The MFC-J5340DW prints textual content and pictures shortly and outcomes on Regular mode are good, however in case you actually wish to impress, kick the standard up a notch – simply control your ink ranges. 

Inkjets are sometimes slower at printing than lasers, however the MFC-J5340DW managed 20 sheets of plain textual content on A4 in slightly below 42 seconds (41.86s), equal to  28.66 pages per minute (ppm). That’s severely spectacular: the sort of efficiency you’d historically affiliate with a laser printer.

Textual content with color graphics was naturally a bit slower, however not by a lot, with my 20-page check file rising after 49.84s (equal to 24.07ppm). 

Printing 20 pages of plain textual content on A3 took longer, as you’d anticipate, at 49.84s (or 24.07ppm), however 20 A3 pages of textual content and color photos was slower going, taking 1 minute 34.58 seconds (or 12.68ppm).

As for duplex A4 printing, it took slightly below a minute – 52.50 seconds (or 22.85 ppm) – for the 20 web page plain textual content file to be printed on 10 sheets of A4, and simply over – 1 minute 2.23 seconds (or 19.92 ppm). 

Contemplating the standard of the output – well-defined serifs, barely any bleed, sheets just about dry as they emerge – that’s wonderful going, excellent news if you’ll want to print of plenty of paperwork or letters in a rush. As with the HP Envy Encourage 7220e, there was a slight grainy end to lighter colors on the pie charts (significantly the blues) on Regular high quality, however it’s not horribly noticeable. 

Photographs printed on shiny 10 x 15cm (4 x 6in) photograph paper had been performed in round 55 to 55 seconds, which is customary for inkjet printers. 

High quality can also be good – darker areas of images are much less exaggerated than on different prints, and so whereas this may imply your vacation snaps look just a little lighter, rather less wealthy by comparability, extra particulars is seen, on account of darkish areas not wanting like swimming pools of inky blackness. Colors regarded much more pure right here than they did on the HP Envy Encourage 7200e, which had a bent to magnify blues a bit. 

The 1200 x 2400 dpi A4 scanner glass is not any slouch both, taking roughly 5 seconds to scan A4 pages (textual content, photos, and a mix thereof) at 300dpi, and 15-20 seconds to scan the identical at 600dpi. 

The 600 x 600 copier took round 1 minute 3.22 seconds (18.98 ppm) to scan and print a single copy of a 20 web page textual content. Duplex copying is supported as properly, albeit from the scanner glass – printing out 20 copies of double-sided plain textual content took 1 minute 52.78 seconds (10.64 ppm).

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Working prices

• The XL cartridges are higher worth for cash
• The 4 cartridge system signifies that upfront prices are excessive

The MFC-J5340DW makes use of 4 ink cartridges – black, cyan, magenta, and yellow – which are available two varieties, the standard-sized LC422 cartridge and the larger LC422XL selection. 

Whereas this implies greater overheads in comparison with inkjets printer which take simply two cartridges as an alternative of 4, that’s not the case. Having separate tanks for every color means in case you run out of cyan ink first, however you continue to have loads of magenta and yellow, you don’t have to interchange a complete tri-colour cartridge. It’s much less wasteful. 

As for costs, a standard-capacity LC422 Black cartridge prices £22.79, whereas the usual color LC422’s value £16.79 every. Within the US, these cartridges are referred to as LC402 and are $24.99 every.

These standard-capacity cartridges have sufficient ink for round 550 pages, which signifies that the associated fee per web page works out at roughly 4¢/4p and 10¢/9p, for black and color pages respectively.

The high-capacity cartridges are naturally costlier, however work out to be higher worth for cash.

A black LC422XL will set you again £41.99 (LC402XL within the US, at $55.49), however will print 3000 sheets, whereas all the color LC422XL’s value £29.99 every (LC402XL, $35.49), and will provide you with sufficient for 1500 prints.

Black-and-white prints work out at round 1¢/1p per web page, which is incredible worth for cash. Color pages value extra, after all, as you want three color cartridges to print these 1500 pages in color. It really works out at 7¢/6p per web page (with the same old 5% protection – it’s significantly extra for full-colour photos).

What’s much less incredible is the prospect of forking out for a full set of cartridges – a full set of normal LC422/LC402’s involves £73.16/US$84.96 altogether, whereas 4 LC422XL/LC402XL’s involves £131.96/$161.96, which is sort of half the RRP of the printer itself. Nevertheless, that’s the associated fee in case you purchase all 4 individually. Purchase them collectively from Brother and also you do save: 4 standard-sized LC422’s are £63.59, and 4 LC422XL’s £118.79.

Within the US, two customary black LC402 cartridges are US$44.99, and three color LC402XL’s are US$95.99

The MFC-J5340DW isn’t at present out there for Brother’s EcoPro subscription plans, so there’s no choice to pay a hard and fast month-to-month value for ink.

Cheaper suitable cartridges from third-party producers will little doubt be out there quickly, however a fast search revealed nothing on the time of overview.

Worth & availability

The Brother MFC-J5340DW is in the stores now, and prices $249.99 on Brother’s web site. For these within the UK, it’s £274.80 direct from Brother. There’s a list for the printer on Brother’s Australian website, however no RRP on the time of writing. 

Different locations within the UK that promote the MFC-J5340DW embody Amazon (£226.80), Cartridge Folks (£224.90), Printerbase (£238.76), Scan (£244.99), and Viking Direct (£226.80).

It’s laborious to search out the MFC-J5340DW within the US outdoors of Brother, however Connection was charging $296.91 – greater than Brother. Because it had no inventory on the time of overview, your greatest guess is to purchase instantly from Brother. 

Likewise, there are presently no distributors in Australia stocking the MFC-J5340DW, so contact Brother instantly in case you’d like to purchase one.

Verdict

The Brother MFC-J5340DW is a superb dwelling workplace printer which produces good-quality outcomes shortly and is economical to run. The primary downside is the excessive up-front value of the ink cartridges. 

• Color inkjet all-in-one printer, copier, scanner
• Ink kind: Cartridges
• Print decision: 4800 x 1200 dpi (color), 1200 x 1200 dpi (black)
• Scan decision: 1200 x 1200 dpi
• Most paper measurement: A3 (plain), 13 x 18 cm (shiny) 
• Dimensions: 305 x 530 x 398 mm (H x W x D)
• Weight: 17.0kg